What is Earbits?

Wow, you ask great questions.

Earbits was designed with one goal in mind – to make it dead simple for artists and music lovers to find each other, and create meaningful connections. Earbits is streaming music built by musicians and music lovers, for musicians and music lovers.

Our team of experts brings you the best independent music from around the world, hand-curated and served up hot with all the trimmings. You'll find great high resolution photos, live show information, band merchandise, and plenty of social features to share the experience with your friends.

You are also very unlikely to find the Top 40 music that you can get everywhere else. You can get that stuff sandwiched between daily deal commercials on hundreds of Big Brother-owned media conglomerates currently bringing you the same old mainstream experience. That's not what we do. Our job is to showcase high quality music and bring you and our artists closer together.

Does that mean I won't hear anybody popular?

We're glad you asked. We said it would be independent, but trust us, there's plenty of heavyweights. You'll find Primus, Widespread Panic, My Morning Jacket and other awesome musicians with strong followings. But you'll really know what Earbits is all about when your ears perk up to the sounds of Jesse Thomas, Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds, Rosie and Me, or Ivory Drive. If you have never heard these incredible artists, you deserve a better music experience.

How can you have no ads, no commercials, and no subscriptions, and still keep the lights on?

The reason that Earbits can have no ads, commercials or fees is because our "advertisers" aren't your normal radio sponsors. We never got into this to use our bands' music to sell cars and fast food, which is why you won't find those sponsors on our site.

We want be the most effective platform for helping high quality independent bands find new fans and turn them into customers. What that means is that the bands are our customers and clients. Rather than doing everything we can to take the focus off of our bands and put it on our corporate sponsors, some of our artists pay for sleeker profiles and increased exposure, and we focus on building tools that help them get real, sustainable value.

One way we’ve done that is with Groovies™, the first social currency designed to let users pay for streaming music by taking actions that give value back to artists and record labels.

Groovies are a fun and easy way for our users to earn credits for supporting artists. Whether you’re spreading the word about an artist through social sharing, or checking into a live show (coming soon!), if you’re supporting the artists, you’re earning Groovies. Then, you use Groovies to access unlimited on-demand music and Groovie rewards.

Simply put, Groovies are the currency that’s going to change the way people access and pay for music, and it’s going to create massive, sustainable careers for thousands of musicians.

I love Earbits. How can I help?

Wow. Thanks for asking! Helping Earbits is simple. Find a band you like? Share them with your friends using our easy tools, and go see a show or buy their album. Think what we're doing is cool? Tell people! The bigger we get, the more artists we can help, and the more great independent music we can bring to our audience. Every little thing helps, and we can use all of the support our fans can give us. More importantly, our bands can use that support even more.

And with that...let's introduce the people behind Earbits. These are the ones building our technology,curating our music, and making Earbits a real business that can help artists for years to come.

"When I first saw Earbits, I couldn't believe my eyes. Worlds collided, rivers flowed upstream, birds sang in languages that could only be described as the purest form of unconditional love. Since that day, no other radio will do. I have lost my wife and children, but I don't care. All I care about is Earbits."
Anonymous

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The Earbits Team

Yotam Rosenbaum

SVP of Operations

When he was five years old Yotam started taking piano lessons. A few years later he was terribly disappointed to learn that playing piano requires practice. As a result he started playing trumpet (stupid move, as trumpet is one of the most demanding instruments on the planet) and spent the majority of his coming of age making his neighbors miserable. His real passion as a kid was for the drums, but for some reason he was convinced that drums are for bad boys who fail at school, and he didn’t want to be perceived as one. Only at 17 he got over the shame and became a drummer, while maintaining a 4.0 GPA (that last part is BS, they don't even have GPA in Israel).

He later graduated Magna Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music, majoring in composition, but he failed the Latin class and couldn’t understand the meaning of it all. Upon graduation he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a composer. He composed music for a bunch of TV shows, commercials, and movies. He also produced a few CDs, and composed music which was performed and recorded by seriously good musicians. Yotam won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award, the JCCP Award, and the 2010 Hummus Man Award. Anyone who knows the details of these competitions will tell you that the Hummus Man award is by far the most impressive.

Yotam’s favorite kinds of music are jazz and classical.

Scott Feldman

Director of Content Development

Since being voted least likely to become Director of Content Development for a music/tech startup, Scott Feldman has been on a singularly focused mission to prove his high school classNamemates wrong. Scott figured the best place to begin this arduous journey to the middle would be as a musician; Feldman proved to be a very quick study and almost immediately graduated to the coveted title of failed musician. At that point, the decision was made to make a micro pivot to music production and licensing, still with an eye toward his ultimate goal. In this new space, Scott has actually enjoyed many successes, writing and producing music for dozens of popular and also many un-popular films, television shows, commercials & production companies. If you’ve traveled extensively through Eastern Europe, you’ve, no doubt, heard some of Scott’s work used to hock a variety of products on very well produced commercials.

Scott started working at Earbits in 2010 as the curator of Pop & Rock Music. And is currently Director of Content Development & Smugness.

Khang Pham

VP of Technology

Khang started programming in his early 20s. Having started programming in Matlab, Java, C, and PHP, he fell in love with Ruby/Rails in the summer of 2008. It wasn't until 2013 when Khang realized that data is a very important and integral aspect to product development. He started to invest significant time and efforts into that area. He's always been interested in learning new things, be it computer related or not. And lets not forget his love for dogs & those irresistible puppies!

While having zero musical skills, Khang loves to listen to music and discover new & interesting non-mainstream artists. This led him to join Earbits in 2015 & find other great individuals who share the same passion and strive to make Earbits the best free online music service for artist & music discovery.

Khang loves strategy games (cough cough ... Hearthstone) and reading all sorts of random news throughout the day.

Randy Goss

Artist Relations Manager

Randy Goss is Earbits's resident Jack of All Trades and a proud student of the YouTube Online School of Video Tutorials (graduated with honors). A drummer, bass player, guitar dabbler and writer of at least two raps, pre-Earbits Randy was in a number of Sacramento-area bands while he dabbled in publishing and podcast production, focusing mostly on the world of mixed martial arts.

After Randy realized that the easiest way to get your ass kicked in M.M.A. is to start a print publication about it, he joined the Earbits team, where he has proven to be capable of anything. He quickly moved up the ranks from peon, to business development peon, to somehow finagling his way into a manager role (suckers!). Now, he is secretly the CEO, quietly sneaking into the office at night like a shoe-maker's elf, sewing up loose ends left by Earbits's fake CEO, Joey Flores.

His favorite bands include Tool, Diego's Umbrella and the now defunct M.I.L.F. Magnet.

Rachelle Ignacio

Android Developer

Rachelle was bred in the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area, in a city known as the south end of the BART line. After years of post-college coming-of-age (the what do I really want to do with my life? kind) and a brief stint living in the thick of city life, she moved down to Los Angeles to hone her skills in mobile app development and dip her feet in the other end of the California bubble. When she’s not cultivating her growth as a developer, she’s out hoping to grow some love for this giant suburb of a city (she misses the Bay Area rain and not-quite-so-terrible traffic). The dope food and hiking spots are helping. As far as music goes, being Filipino, she’s literally moved by anything with a good beat.

Duncan Woodbury

Hip-Hop and R&B Editor

Duncan Woodbury hails from Sonoma, CA, the self-described “Deadhead Capital of the World”. A bass player from the age of 10, Duncan cut his teeth playing jazz, funk and rock in the local scene. Falling in love with Hip-hop in his teen years during the infamous Hyphy Movement, he formed the beat crew Plan 9 with fellow Bay Area producer Sudman.

While working on his BFA in Music Technology from CalArts, Duncan refined his beat skills and increased his DJ IQ as president of the campus radio station. Upon moving down south, he was exposed to the emerging LA beat scene, working with upstart crews around Southern California. After graduating Duncan helped found Mothership LA in 2013, an artist collective dedicated to presenting exciting new hip-hop, funk and electronic music. As a freelance engineer he has worked at Grand Park, the Bootleg Theater and the Echoplex.

Duncan’s favorite rappers are KRS-One and E-40. Also, Go Giants.

Aaron Stein-Chester

Jazz, classical, World, New Age, Avant Editor

Aaron was born in Santa Monica, CA and raised in Dana Point, CA, and he'll insist that it makes a difference. Dana Point is where they almost filmed that show "The Real Orange County." No one calls it "The OC."

His first words were "Baroque Concerto," and he was raised on a healthy diet of Pat Metheny, Talking Heads, and Sting cassettes. He's played the violin on and off since the age of 10, and really didn't listen to anything made after 1985 until about 1999 when he bought Pinkerton a few years too late. He started collecting records in 2003 when he saw the local library was just giving away mint-condition Deutsche Grammophon LPs, and he’s been running out of space in his apartments ever since.

Currently, he resides in Los Angeles, CA where he does music for films.

Some of his favorites: anything on ECM, CTI, or Kranky. Stars of the Lid. Iasos, Laraaji, Eno, Harold Budd, the Cocteau Twins. Bach (duh).

Robb Nastal

Electronic Editor

During the second summer of love, the rising acid house revolution filled warehouses with unfathomable euphoria, and spread sunshine throughout the streets of Britain. Meanwhile, 3,284 miles away in the city of Boston, Robb Nastal was beginning his journey into music.

Over the years, Robb became increasingly interested in the creative possibilities of sound and began to learn music production. At the incredible age of 16, Robb purchased a pair of turntables and a mixer. With his love for music set in stone, and a game 7 championship mindset, he decided to take on the world and move to Los Angeles, California to attend Musicians Institute, knowing that he would probably become rich and famous within like one or two years.

After studying audio-engineering and post-production, Robb was taken under the wing of his previous sensei and introduced to the very friendly, stress-free, and lucrative world of ‘assistant engineering’. To this day, Robb resides in sunny California, working as a producer and engineer; however, he never forgot his roots and continues to DJ for a crowd of celebrity cardboard cutouts arranged in his living room.

Adam Hall

Country, Blues and Folk Editor

Adam was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to a psychiatrist father and school teacher mother. He spent his childhood getting winks from the ladies from within his mother's Mazda minivan, listening to casette tapes of the Jacksons. Meaning Alan Jackson and Michael Jackson.

His family relocated to a remote part of southwestern Virginia in the Appalachian mountains. Adam taught himself to play the guitar and performed with southern rock and heavy metal bands throughout his teens. Subsiding on primarily tomato and mayo sandwiches during these years, he managed to achieve a perfect score on the prestigious and alluring National Latin Exam. While living in this part of the country, he heard the region's native music, bluegrass, for the first time. He eventually became enchanted by its awesomeness and got his first banjo when he was 18.

Hall went on to major in music at the University of Virginia. After completing his studies (dean's list, bitches!), and a brief stint of living in the northern Mississippi hill country, Adam packed up his banjo, threw a stick-with-clothes-bundle over his shoulder, and headed to Los Angeles. He attended Musicians Institute in Hollywood, where nearly everybody had arrived donning a stick-with-clothes-bundle, and earned a degree in guitar performance.

Adam now gigs regularly in southern California, playing guitar, banjo, and dobro (not all at once, although that would make him really fucking cool), and has headlined a national tour as a member of country artist Jason Charles Miller's band. He has had the pleasure of some great gigs, opening for Alan Jackson at the Greek Theatre, opening for country star Gary Allan, and performing at the Stagecoach festival.